| Joseph (Cooke) Cook GCMG MP is managed by the Australia Project. Join: Australia Project Discuss: australia |
Preceded by Andrew Fisher |
6th Prime Minister of Australia 24 June 1913 to 17 September 1914 |
Succeeded by Billy Hughes |
Joseph (Cooke) Cook was born on the 7th of December 1860 at Silverdale, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England, son of William Cooke (~1833 - 1873) and Margaret (Fletcher) Cooke (~1831 - >1901).
Cook was born into a coalmining family at Silverdale, near Newcastle-upon-Lyme in Staffordshire. His father was killed in a pit accident when he was 9, and he commenced work in a pit. Forced to attend school by a new Education Act, he embarked on self improvement.
By the time of the 1880 Census, Joseph was living in Wolstanton, with his mother, two brothers and three sisters, and where he met his future wife.[1]
Joseph married Mary Turner (~1863 - 1950) on the 8th of August 1885 at Wolstanton Primitive Methodist Chapel, England.
Their children included:
Emigrating to Australia, he became a coalminer at Lithgow, becoming General-Secretary of the Western Miners Association in 1887. Cook was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as MP for the coalfields seat of Hartley in 1891, in Labor's first big breakthrough in Australian politics. It was the first time Labor had won a seat in any parliament in Australia. He split with the party in 1894 over his support for free trade. He served as a Minister under Premier George Reid 1894-99, and was elected a member of the first Federal Parliament in 1901.
On the night of August 4, 1914, as Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. Joseph Cook, as he was then, was addressing a country meeting in Victoria when he heard that Britain was at war. The next morning, immediately after his return to Melbourne, he summoned the service chiefs to his office. After a short conference he cabled Britain offering an immediate contingent of 20,000 men, with more to follow, plus the aid of the Royal Australian Navy. With that gesture, Joseph Cook began the policy of all-out aid to Britain which Australia followed in both World Wars.[2]
Joseph Cook died on the 30th of July 1947, at Bellevue Hill, Sydney, New South Wales, aged 86 years.[3]
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